Navratri and Dashera

Festivals are part of our Sanatan Hindu Dharma. Through these festivals Hindu Dharma expresses itself to common masses. These festivals bind us together. Navaratri is very important festival. Through this festival we worship Goddess, female personification of Supreme Self or Parmatama. Parmatama Itself remains beyond polarities even though both polarities emerge from It. Actually it is transcendental union of these two polarities.

Hindu Dharma gives equal importance to female deities. That is why our all male Gods are shown with female counterparts. In Navaratri we worship Goddess for nine nights. One may ask why nine nights, why not 3 or 6 or 8? There is profound philosophical reason behind it.

Number ‘9’ contains all digits. Because 8+1 = 9, 3+6=9, 7+2=9 etc. But ‘9’ is not contained by any digit. Similarly the Goddess we worship contains whole universe within her, but the universe can not contain Her. She is beyond that.

First three nights we worship Goddess Laxmi. We need material and spiritual wealth to sustain us. But we need knowledge both material and spiritual to use wealth, and how to create and maintain. So we worship Goddess Sarswati for next three nights. Wealth has to be protected. So for next three nights we worship Goddess Durga symbol of Shakti (power). Once we have wealth , knowledge and power, the way to attain self realization becomes easy.

Unfortunately we forgot the importance of Goddess Durga. We had material wealth. So many temples were full of gold, but no Durga to protect those temples. We just didn’t think about power. So handful of Moguls and British were able to conquer us and to loot us. It is time we understand the importance of power which we gave up under the grab of nonsense concepts of love and nonviolence.

When male power fail to protect Dharma against demon Mahisasur, Goddess Durga symbol of Nari Shakti was invoked. As soon as she came without going through crap like diplomatic dialogue, solution through negotiation, people to people contact, cultural exchange etc. she killed Mahisasur in one stroke. We Hindus never took any effort to understand her.

Well, whatever the situation was there at that period (Puranic), the same situation is now. For one thousand year we are getting beaten, humiliated and looted. Means male power failed to protect our value system. That means it is time for Nari Shakti to come forward. To my Hindu sisters and mothers, I like to tell you that it is time for you to come forward to protect our Dharma. Now remember Goddess Durga, Amba, or Kali won’t come from somewhere in the sky. They are within you. You have to invoke them. So you have to become Durga, Amba and Kali and fight all those Mahisasurs who are out to destroy our culture and civilizations . That is the message of Navaratri.

About Dashera. We celebrate Dashera as victory of Bhagvan Ram over King Ravan. Triumph of good over evil. But did we Hindus really win against evil? Hindus are still ruled by evils. So what is use of this celebration when we can not put it into practice? It is high time that we understand true meaning of Dashera and make ourselves ready to face challenges posed by evils. Good is not going to win by itself. We have to make it win. Bhagvan Ram had to organize whole army of monkeys and had to build bridge. After so much effort good defeated evil. We have to go through the same way to win against evils . Hope we Hindus will understand true meaning of our festivals and wake up from slumber.